Dear Dr. Carson: Ignorance Is A State Of Mind, Too (VIDEO)


Ben Carson, the former presidential candidate, is a soft spoken intellectual. He is by all accounts a brilliant surgeon with gentle hands and a serene demeanor.

Even so, sometimes he sounds like a complete idiot. The man who now serves as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has a habit of making ignorant statements.

For example, he once said that the Holocaust wouldn’t have been as bad if the Jews had owned guns. He said that slavery was a form of immigration.

Yup.

Secretary Carson is at it again.

This week he told a reporter that to a large extent, poverty is a “state of mind.”  He said:

“You take somebody that has the right mindset, you take everything from them and put them on the street and I guarantee in a little while they’ll be right back up there. And you take somebody with the wrong mindset, you can give them everything in the world, they’ll work their way right back down to the bottom.”

Sure, Doc! Just tell those hungry kids that if they put their minds to it, food will magically appear on the table. Great advice for single Moms with no chance at education. Just think happy thoughts and you’ll have your own home in a flash.

Why in the world would the Secretary of HUD be saying things like this? After all, that’s the agency that is supposed to be helping poor Americans to find safe and affordable housing. Its purpose is to help protect those who are mired in poverty.

Maybe Dr. Carson is making these ridiculous comments because his boss just sent out a budget proposal that will cut $6 billion dollars from his agency.

Maybe he’s hoping that people can lean how to help themselves with positive thinking, since they won’t be getting any actual government help.

What a joke.

Featured image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr. (CC BY-SA 2.0)

 

Karen is a retired elementary school teacher with many years of progressive activism behind her. She is the proud mother of three young adults who were all arrested with Occupy Wall Street. To see what she writes about in her spare time, check out her blog at "Empty Nest, Full Life"